Growing Grass
by tigerlily4
Summary: A possible future set about ten years after EW. Chang Wufei/Catherine Bloom. G. Complete.


Wufei sat in the battered wooden chair outside the trailer, where Catherine would knit on warmer days, or peel vegetables when they had them. The door was unlocked: he hadn't checked, but he had been here often enough to know. Still, no one had answered his quick knock, and he had not been invited in. He knew how Barton, at least, was about coming home to unexpected guests. It was only polite. There was a reason he'd brought paperwork with him—other than that the shuttle ride was tedious enough without working on something useful.

The smell of something burning inside of the trailer almost changed his mind. As he sat, considering his course of action, Catherine rescued him from his dilemma—a bag full of groceries that she was trying to shift to one hand, muttering under her breath about public transportation. She didn't notice him at all.

"Let me take that," he said, standing and coming to her side, leaving his paperwork on the chair (he'd have to retrieve it. It wasn't classified, but it was still not businesslike to leave such around for anyone to read). She gratefully let him take the bag.

"I didn't expect to see you here!" Catherine accused him, a grin on her face. She pushed the door open, and rushed to the counter to grab some mitts and pull the casserole out of the oven, setting it on the counter. Wufei carefully removed the foodstuff from the bag, sorting it as she spoke. "This recipe says it's good to stay in the over for two hours, I couldn't have been gone longer than an hour and a half even with how slow the bus service was—it broke down, can you believe it? And they call themselves civilized—ow! That's still hot. I've been lazy about cooking with Trowa gone, sorry, though of course you're still welcome to have some—"

"I already ate," Wufei informed her with only a modicum of truth (the apple he'd had at the shuttleport totally counted). "But thank you."

She stopped in front of him, smiling. "Well, look, you can have one of the oranges—and I have some gunpowder tea in the cupboard; you can oversee the making of it and everything so I don't over steep it, picky."

He looked down at her for a long moment, and an amused smile crept up the side of his mouth. He nodded, bending down the short distance between them to kiss her briefly before he moved to the cabinets.

Catherine let out an amused huff of air, and he could see her shaking her head out of the corner of his eye, as she scooped some of the casserole onto a plate. "I didn't realize your vacation time was already in effect. August 3rd-August 17th— something come up, to push it forward?"

"It isn't. This is a paid leave." Wufei paused, critically examining the tea in the container.

"Don't you dare," Catherine interjected, before he could start. "I checked the province, made noises at the owner, read up on grades and everything. It's not fancy, but it's the best I could get for my money."

"I was going to say that," Wufei told her, glancing over and smiling. "It was a good choice, Catherine."

She relaxed, grinning smugly at him. She pushed the casserole dish over and perched on the counter next to him, plate and fork in hand. "Now, what's this about a paid leave? You didn't make anyone mad, did you?"

Wufei didn't look at her as he filled the teapot he'd bought her on her 26th birthday with water (he had the depressing feeling she'd been using her instant brewer instead, ruining the flavor). "Not this time. Po put it in, because I sustained a minor injury two days ago."

The plate clattered onto the counter as Catherine landed lightly on the floor. "You told me everything went fine," her voice was irritated, but she touched his shoulders gently to turn him around.

"Everything idid/i go fine," he protested, setting the teapot down as he turned. "I just caught a piece of shrapnel in my side." He took her hand and guided it to halfway down his chest, so she could feel the slight bump of a bandage underneath his starched dress shirt. "It's not a problem."

"Clearly enough of a problem that Sally sent you home for it," Catherine bit her lip, turned her hand to take his and gave it a squeeze, smiling softly at him after a moment and letting go. "Between you and Trowa I'm going to be completely gray before I'm thirty. Ah, make your tea."

Wufei snorted amiably, and turned to do just that.

*

Chang Wufei wasn't like her brother, Cathy knew. Her brother came home from a mission as her brother, ready to take care of lions and tease her in his deadpan way. The first thing he'd do when he came home was to call her "sis" and return her hug. It was like he and the Preventer he worked as were the same person, a seamless transition.

Wufei, on the other hand, needed a trial period. It was always in those first hours he was back that they would pick their way around each other like they were still unsure of each other, like when he'd kiss her carefully and not go further. Cathy didn't know much of honor, but Wufei's people were dead, and that was the way things had been done among them. She could understand that.

It would not be until that night and the next day that he would unwind enough to pull her close, sometimes, and smile against her hair, that he'd call her _lăo pó_ and laugh, sometimes, at her jokes. That was all right. It had been years, now; she'd grown used to it.

*

When Wufei woke, before dawn, his file folder was on the table. That was how he knew his brother-in-law was home.


End file.
